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Hello readers… I feel slightly ashamed as I type this, that I haven’t written a blog post since August and the months have slowly passed by and my poor blog has been sitting here waiting for me to put words on the page.

I hadn’t forgotten about writing; in fact it was on my mind that I should write something (because writing and creating is actually an important outlet for me) but I felt as if I had no inspiration and to be honest, I still don’t feel inspired. There’s the thoughts that say You have nothing to write about and No one will be interested anyway and You don’t have time and simply, What’s the point?

But listening to those thoughts and sitting around waiting for inspiration to come wasn’t getting me anywhere… so think of this post as me popping in to say hello and by starting to…

Yesterday there was a man on the tram who was wearing a blue hawaiian shirt that was too big for him. Then he had cycling shorts on, which were over shiny leggings, which appeared to be over a bigger pair of trousers. Best of all he was wearing black, patent pointed, kitten heel boots. He didn’t look entirely comfortable in his attire, least of all from the odd looks he got from the stylish Chapel Street travellers, and I, course, couldn’t help but stare…

On Tuesday I took the tram down Chapel Street to St Kilda, for an evening drink. It was a beautiful evening, the sun was setting over the sea, but before i made it that far a man got on the tram with a bicycle. He wheeled his way to the back, and sat in the seat the other side of the aisle to me. The man behind me apparently said something the Pikey didn’t like, cos he got up and said somthing like this: ” WHAT?? YOU WANNA SAY THAT AGAIN YOU F**KING ****” and SPAT in the guy’s face!!!! He responded, quite calmly, obviously noting that the pikey was not to be reasoned with, saying something about it being a joke. Pikey ranted on “WHAT??? I can do WHAT I WANT, WHAT I F**KING WELL WANT, WHEN I WANT. NO ONE TELLS ME WHAT TO DO. i DO WHAT i WANT, ALL THE f**KING TIME. I CAN USE THE TRAM, I CAN USE MY BIKE. YOU WANNA TAKE THIS OUTSIDE???? YOU WANNA SAY THAT AGAIN? i’LL DO MORE THAN SPIT IN YOUR F**KING FACE, I’LL PUT YOU IN HOSPITAL MATE……” This speech continued, over my head, as the object of his outburst was right behind me. He stopped between swearwords though, to apologise to me, for his outrage, before continuing his torrent of “I DO WHAT I F***KING WANT”.
I moved towards the front of the carriage, one stop early, and made that I was checking its destination with the driver, not before the Pikey had continued his rant, his previous target having wisely got off… at ME. Clearly desperate to justify his rage and explain to me why he was on the tram with his bike, and how fucking rude it is to comment and make jokes. bla bla. bla. goodness me what a fun Tuesday afternoon!

Then today, a girl got on the tram and signed the cross. Maybe she has met my pikey nutter on the Chapel Street tram and needed another force to keep her safe… or sane.

Sitting my bedroom back in the UK, I finally have a moment to reflect upon the last 6 months of my life in Central Europe. I had hoped to post this before I left dear Slovakia, but the last month was filled with sunshine, people, parties, goodbyes, admin and pretty much trying to squeeze something out of every moment I had left that I didn’t have a moment to sit down and think about things.

In just 6 months I experienced temperatures from -10 to +34 C, thunderstorms that shook my building, I watched the country and the city transform from a barren brown landscape to a flourishing display of colour, I visited 4 countries, including 3 capital cities, attempted to learn a new language, hiked round Bratislava, through the Mala Fatras, visited 4 unique castles, enjoyed local food and drink, taught mad 3 year olds, business execs and rude children , met some amazing people and met some friends for life. What more could you ask for?

The question most frequently asked by my students was “Why are you here?” and “What do you think of Slovakia and the people here?”

The first question was often exclaimed with great surprise when I told my students where I had previously lived and worked. They seemed unable to conceive why I would leave such a place and replace it with Bratislava. My simple response would always be “I wanted to go somewhere totally different”. That was the simplest answer and the most truthful. Indeed, I needed a new challenge and I certainly got one. Much as I loved Spain and my life there, a change was needed, so when I saw Bratislava pop up in my job search on a wet December afternoon, I googled it, it intrigued me so I applied. It couldn’t have been further from what I was used to: Teaching at 7:30 am, eating lunch at 12:00, going to bed at 10pm, running around the city, trying to gather a language that was alien to me, dealing with a fair dosage of snow are just a few things that challenged me.

Unfortunately my vocalisation of said challenges was wrongly perceived as a dislike to my environment and lifestyle. While I admit it was far from easy at times I don’t remember ever feeling a strong sense of dislike to the city or indeed Slovakia. In fact, quite the contrary, as I gazed out of my window on the train to Prague, heading homeward bound last weekend, I sadly wondered when I would see such natural beauty again. I’ve visited many places which radiate beauty, but nowhere in such an understated way as Slovakia. It’s a country who hasn’t yet realised its potential. Tourism is starting to kick off and the nation hasn’t quite decided to what to do about it.

The Slovaks? Apart from a few people who made me want to slap them round the face (but name me a country where you won’t find people like that!) I left with a very positive impression of a very friendly, altruistically helpful nation. My initial surprise at the high level of English embarrassed me as I struggled to make myself understood ordering coffee and was nearly always responded to in perfect English, was sometimes challenged by the unnecessarily rude people working in public services, but again find me a nation that doesn’t have those.

One of my greatest challenges in the early days was trying to get adults to speak in class. This, coming from Spain, where trying to get them to stop speaking is a challenge, was difficult to deal with at times. I could describe the Slovaks as a humble nation, reserved and lacking the confidence to be proud of their nation.

Bratislava handled the Ice Hockey Championships pretty well and continuously impressed me with its snow control, but my most frequent phrase was “they haven’t quite thought this through”. It seemed always that the ideas where there, but things didn’t quite get thought out. An example of which would be standing in a 4 hours queue to get into Bojnice castle. They had though to provide us with food and drink to our heart content, but failed to provide toilet facilities…

Bratislava is described as the Little Big City. In comparison to its neighbouring capitals it’s a village, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in community spirit. A student once told me that Slovakia is so small that you are hard pushed to not find someone that knows someone who knows someone you know, so you should never need to book a hotel anywhere, just call your friend of a friend of a friend. I really do get that feeling about the locals. One of the best experiences I had was a weekend I spent with a group of people I met one Friday night, who then invited me to something on Saturday, which turned into something on Saturday night, something on Sunday and something on Sunday evening. By the end of the Sunday I felt like I belonged to a family of friends and wished I had met them in my first month.

It’s really hard not to make comparisons when you move to a new culture and reminisce about how it was, would have and might have been. I have no doubt that I’ll grumble in my next location about how it’s done in Slovakia, which I could sip a Frankovka Modra, gulp a Zlatý Bažant or start the day with a Becherovka. I’ll be saying Prosim and Ďakujemfor a while yet and will get into my Slovak cook book to try and recreate garlic soup in a bread bowl or dumplings in sheep’s cheese. I still have the weather in Bratislava bookmarked as a favourite, I’m still gasping at the price of alcohol and transport here and I am still fondly enjoying my photos and retelling stories.

I’ve enjoyed sharing my observations and anecdotes over the last six months. I may even continue blogging about my dear country over the summer.